Importing Log Files

Speech application event logging data is stored in event trace log (.etl) log files. To view and analyze the data in .etl files, first import it to these databases:

• a Call Viewer database
• and a Speech Application Reports database

Separate databases are required for each of the two tools. To view reports you need to import the .etl files into a database for use by Speech Application Reports. To analyze calls at event-level detail in Call Viewer, a separate database with a different schema is required. The recommended tool for importing log files into these databases is Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Data Transformation Services (DTS). As an alternative, use the MSSLogToDatabase command line tool.

Optimizing .etl File Management

The following steps are recommended in order to minimize the impact of creating large .etl files.

• Compress .etl files to the Zip Archive file format. By their nature, .etl files contain a lot of repetitive content, which makes file compression very effective. Compressing .etl files to the ZIP format will both cut disk space usage and reduce the network bandwidth needed when copying files to other computers as described in the following bullets.
• Exclude .etl files from virus scanning. Virus scanning may substantially increase the amount of time needed when compressing these files.
• Monitor disk space usage.
• Configure Microsoft Speech Server (MSS) to write .etl files out to a local drive on the MSS computer. It is preferred that this drive be separate from both MSS and the operating system. There are two issues here. First, if the operating system drive gets full MSS won't have enough space, which might actually cause calls to fail. Second, logging to a local drive is more efficient. Runtime performance of Enterprise Instrumentation Framework (EIF), and therefore MSS, will suffer if the server has to write all the log file events to .etl files across a network.
• Importing .etl files to the SQL database directly from the MSS computer may impact MSS performance. To avoid this, before importing .etl files, copy them to a computer other than the MSS computer. To minimize performance impact, the copy operation should be performed off-hours; and by a low priority scheduled task. In order to give the MSS computer control over the task priority, the task must run on the MSS computer. In other words, the MSS computer should push the files onto the destination computer using a low priority scheduled task.

Optimizing Import Performance

In order to minimize the time needed to import data and to reduce the risk of impairing MSS performance, the following steps are recommended.

• Users should choose filters with the smallest number of events possible to meet their needs. If users import audio and all events, the import can take an extremely long time.
• To make imports faster, increase the memory of the computer hosting the SQL Server database.
• Consider scheduling regular imports during off-hours.

Selecting Event Types for Speech Application Reports

To include additional event types for use in your own custom reports, list events in a .txt file and specify the file when creating the database. Include each event type on a separate line. List each event type desired for the custom report.

The event types are classes in the Microsoft.SpeechServer.Log namespace. When listing event types the namespace should be omitted. Only the event type name is required. The event classes are structured hierarchically and implement an inheritance model. As a result, if a parent type is listed the children are also added to the database. For information on the event schema, begin with the topic Event Logging Class Hierarchy.

Selecting Event Types for Call Viewer

To get complete information in the Call Summary tab in Call Viewer, include at least the following event types when importing from .etl files to the Call Viewer database:

• QASummaryEvent
• CallStartedEvent
• CallEndedEvent
• CallRejectedEvent

If these event types are not included in the import, the Calls table in the Call Viewer database is populated largely with null values. As a result, queries in Call Viewer display mostly null values.

Creating Database Files on a FAT32 Volume

The maximum file size on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB. Since speech application .etl files can be very large, it is possible to exceed the 4 GB limit when importing log files into a database. The workaround is to create multiple data files in the primary filegroup as described in the topic Physical Database Files and Filegroups in the MSDN Library.

For More Information

See Also

Microsoft Speech Application Log Analysis Tools 1.1